


Road Musing

by teaandchess



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandchess/pseuds/teaandchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max only needs one thing...no matter how badly he wants others...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Musing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skitty_the_Great](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skitty_the_Great/gifts).



You never looked back. Not even for that hope.

Always one step forward, to take three back. Three back to a life, a world he loathed and yearned for in equal measure. Try as he might to resist the siren's call of blood and mayhem, Max never had been able to resist it. He had tried to change, once before, but the truth to his nature, the truth to what he was, meant that the luxury of change was nothing but a dream.

He was what he was. Damned were the consequences.

He'd seen it in her eyes. His presence would be welcome at the Citadel. He could try to settle his restless nature, become something more than just a feral Road Warrior. Maybe even find a reason to live beyond the Road.

Only he didn't need it like he needed the sacred nature of the Road. The endless stretches of nothingness, mingled with blood and carnage. He needed that to absolve his guilts. No crystal clear eyes could beckon him free from the chain that still tethered him to the guilt and madness he every day fought against. No kind word, no promise of a solid state, could rid him of those dregs of emotion better than the Road.

No, he needed the Road as a lover needed his partner, as an addict needed a hit. He wanted its chaotic presence in his life. He needed to know he had that freedom that it gave him. A freedom that at the same time tethered him with almost unbreakable chains. The Road was an endless beast that snarled and growled at him, whispered to him. It was an Immortal in a way that War Boys and mad leaders could only pretend to understand.

He was doomed to wander it.

~~

If the Road was a lover, the V8 was a friend. Faithful as a dog with teeth sharper than any heeler. His Interceptor was as rough as he often felt and matched him perfectly.

Or rather it had.

When he took what he could in a pursuit vehicle — guzzoline, chains, water, food —, a War Boy had thought to stop him. Clearly one of those not aware of the rule change going on up above. So he slammed the kid's head into the metal frame and went on his merry way. Driving through the endless stretch, past a now familiar road he'd first seen when cross-railed as a blood bag and last seen as a free man struggling to help a dying woman, he'd looked for its carcass with dying hope. The buzzard-like scavengers were already there, picking apart the dead for boots, chains, leathers. When they saw him coming, they revved engines and glared but no one stopped him as he went to the still smoking wreckage of his car.

His car. His only real possession of value. Except, as he'd learned, for his blood.

We are not things!

Yeah right. Everyone had their value, and he'd long since learned his.

Stroking a hand on the still hot frame, he crooned to it like he might a dying pet. "What'd they do to you, beauty? Stripped you bare? Hmm," he murmured, the most he'd spoken in days. The car smouldered on and, sighing, he turned away and stared at the landscape. The buzzards were eyeballing his pursuit vehicle now and he grunted loudly. The men went scampering off and retreated, like their namesakes would.

Useless tools.

With one eye on them, he chained the car up and harnessed the pursuit truck as best as he could. His leg still ached in the brace and he moved slowly, too slowly, and he knew the buzzards were eyeing him. Hungry and desperate for the supplies he had. 

He threw the truck in drive and felt the immediate tug as the vehicle struggled to take the weight of the V8. It chugged and heaved, finding purchase in the sand. Then, with a spin of its tires, it charge forward with the car behind it, wiggling on the lines like a dying fish.

Max looked out the side mirror at the distance horizon he'd come from, the canyon that led back.

Savagely, he ripped the mirror off the side of the truck and tossed it.

Just him and the Road. That was all he needed.

That was all he could hope to have.


End file.
